'Kick-Ass' Chloe Moretz Becomes a 'Hick'

Hit-Girl's career continues to barrel forward, this time with her first big, starring dramatic gig. Variety reports that Chloe Moretz will star in Andrea Portes' adaptation of her 2007 novel, Hick, and Derick Martini, one half of the Martini Brothers behind Lymelife, will direct.

Portes' debut book focuses on a Nebraska girl named Luli who runs away to Las Vegas. Her mother -- an "aging Brigitte Bardot" -- and father have run off, leaving Luli alone at home with a Smith and Wesson .45. She grabs the gun and starts hitching rides to Vegas, where she faces a number of unsafe and unsavory types from a drug addict to a rapist. In other words, it basically takes the cinematically adventurous kid-on-his-own story of Moretz's Hugo Cabret and gives it a heavy and unsafe dose of reality.

Something tells me that Moretz is done with the 100 Acre Wood. After a decent stint lending her voice to My Friends Tigger & Pooh, she quickly jumped up to the typical wise-for-her-years Rachel in (500) Days of Summer before becoming the "It" Girl Hit-Girl and snagging a number of lead roles in the likes of The Fields, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, and this fall's vampire romance Let Me In. Think she's ready for something a little heavier, or does this sort of drama just reek of Dakota Fanning territory?